the international march fadness championship featured
(16) natalie imbruglia, "torn"
defeating
(6) omc, "how bizarre"
883-550
and cutting down the nets
3/31/17.

Thanks for playing March Fadness. Though the tournament itself has concluded in real time, you may continue to play it off on your own by listening to each song and reading each essay and voting, beginning with the first round games (oldest ones at the bottom) under "Past Games" above, and working your way through difficult (or not-so-) choice after difficult choice until a winner is revealed. That is, the medium of March Fadness is you, the listener, the viewer.

We will return in February 2018 with another tournament, most likely March Shredness, the hair metal bracket.

here is the final bracket:

CLICK FOR FULL SIZE

or here is a blank one for you to fill out by yourself or with someone you love.

SELECTION METHODOLOGY

Songs for the tourney proper (not play-ins) are by artists who have one and only one US Top 40 hit. Songs are seeded according to highest chart position (so the top seeds hit #1, whereas the lower seeds may have just charted). 

However, since some songs that The Committee deemed essential didn't quite qualify on these merits but it felt should be included (Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn" topped out at #41, incredibly, whereas Snow had another "hit" beyond "Informer"—"Girl I've Been Hurt" hit #19; you remember that? Neither do we), The Committee added play-in games for these essential songs to have the potential to make the tournament if you, the listener/viewer/reader, deem them worthy.

The Committee also typically tried to omit songs not really in the spirit of the tournament. So, for instance, though Concrete Blonde's "Joey" hit #19, Faith No More's "Epic" hit #9, and The Cardigans' "Lovefool" hit #2, they're omitted by virtue of their impressive careers/bodies of work (also all three of these songs are great). They should not, in The Committee's view, be considered proper one-hit-wonders. Ditto Sinead O'Connor, who apparently only had one US Top 40 hit ("Nothing Compares 2 U"). The Committee supposes, though, that hardcore fans of nearly any one of these bands could argue that their long careers make them not real one-hit-wonders. Well, we shall see how the games go.